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Dele reflects on Palace wonder-goal

Posted on 23 January 2016
- 21:09

Dele Alli stunned the whole of Selhurst Park – including himself – with his majestic goal on Saturday afternoon.

The 19-year-old midfielder produced a moment of sheer brilliance to put us 2-1 up against Crystal Palace, flicking the ball up over his head 20 yards from goal before turning and volleying low inside the near post in the 84th minute.

That strike – a certain Goal of the Season contender – saw us complete a deserved turnaround against Alan Pardew’s side after Harry Kane had cancelled out a first-half own goal from Jan Vertonghen, with Nacer Chadli completing a 3-1 victory with a long-range strike in stoppage time.

Reflecting on his goal, which was met by a collective gasp around the stadium, Dele said: “It was a bit of a natural thing. I didn’t really think about it too much and I sort of shocked myself – I think you could tell from my celebration, I didn’t really know what to do.

“You can work on different kinds of finishing with volleys and stuff in training, but you can’t really replicate a game situation. It’s just the emotions you’re feeling – I like to express myself and I showed that today.”

As for the team’s performance after recovering from the disappointment of conceding in the first half, the young England international added: “I think the lads all fought really well today and especially to come back from 1-0 down and show the determination that we did, it was a great three points in the end.

“We’re a really confident side, we never stop playing until the last whistle and I think you could see that here. We have great belief in each other, we know we’ve got a great squad with great depth, players can come off the bench and change the game and I think they did that today.

“There was never really a point when we thought the game was over and we just kept fighting until the end.

“The fans were brilliant again, they kept at us to keep going and keep fighting. I think the club is in a really good place at the moment, we just need to keep winning games and keep playing well.”